High Notes

We are in a New York City recording studio, early one Sunday afternoon. Tony Bennett, the legendary and ageless pop singer, is rehearsing a duet of the Rodgers and Hart classic “The Lady Is a Tramp” with the flamboyant singer-songwriter Lady Gaga. The two performers are having fun—and flirting shamelessly. It’s a great scene:

Bennett is characteristically bronze, smiling and majestic in a Brioni tux with a red pocket square, a white shirt, and a black tie, and Gaga is in a long black lace see-through gown under a sleeveless black leather motorcycle jacket with studded lapels. She’s sipping whiskey and affecting a slight Southern redneck drawl, and she’s teasing Bennett about the way his mere presence captivates women. “Do they always get really nervous and stand there, sweating and blushing?” She herself is clearly not immune.

I will never forget this scene, which appeared in the New Yorker half a dozen years ago. I found it so authentic and affecting, these two legends from different generations coming together, the moment captured by a legend and superstar in his own right, Gay Talese. Since then, whenever I hear either Gaga or Bennett on the radio, I flash back to that studio in New York, and their charming connection.

This is what Gay Talese can do for a reader. Of course, his stories are all diligently reported and elegantly developed throughout, but in every piece there is also this “you are here” element, a brilliant flash that thoroughly illuminates the characters he profiles.